Stricter judgment – “Sometimes I feel like a guide escorting others through the rooms of their own house. What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover unopened wings of their house containing beautiful and creative pieces of identity.”[1] Irvin Yalom’s comment stirred similar feelings in me. The…
Rosanne and I will return to the United States in July. JULY 11 to 16 Ft. Meyer’s, FL I will be speaking for a week of lectures at Beth Yeshua Messianic Synagogue 15675 McGregor Blvd. Fort Myers, FL 33908 239-437-3171 Here are the times: July 11 – July 16 Monday 7:00 pm Tuesday 7:00 pm…
Be assured, the evil person will not go unpunished, but the descendants of the righteous will be rescued. Proverbs 11:21 NASB Be assured – You remember the old hymn, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine.” Fanny Crosby clearly didn’t get the idea from this Hebrew verse. Why? Well, the…
A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm. Proverbs 11:17 NASB Cruel – Who is the cruel person? The torturer? The egotistic dictator? Men like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin? When we think of the antonym of “cruel” these days, what term comes to mind? Kind? Forgiving? Merriam-Webster lists “tender, warm, warmhearted, charitable, clement, lenient, merciful, pitying, pacific, peaceable, peaceful.” The…
Just a photo from my walk today
A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm. Proverbs 11:17 NASB Merciful – It should come as no surprise that the word translated “mercy” is really ḥesed. The translation relies on the way ḥesed is treated in the LXX, but as you know, even there we find eight different Greek words for…
A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm. Proverbs 11:17 NASB Does himself good – Arthur Branch, the District Attorney in the television series Law and Order, quipped, “Sometimes the good you do doesn’t do you any good.” Regretfully, he seems to be correct. Human experience suggests that doing good doesn’t always…
I have informed you today, even you. Have I not written for you thirty things in good counsel and knowledge? Proverbs 22:20 Robert Alter Thirty things – “The Masoretic Text has shalishim (‘captains’?) in the ketiv (consonantal text) and shelishim (‘threes’?) in the qeri (marginal gloss). Neither makes sense, and the translation [here] adopts Michael…
Extend your ear and hear the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge; Proverbs 22:17 NASB Words of the wise – Many years ago I led a Bible study on the book of Proverbs. When we reached this section (which runs to 24:22), I remarked that this material was most likely…
For hundreds of years, the Good Friday procession commemorating the death of Jesus has been an important religious ritual in Tuscania, a small medieval city in Italy. Attended mostly by the local citizens, this Friday I was once again in the crowd. This time I noticed several important things. First, at the end of the…
